The XXth Century Political History of Russia: lecture materials. Gennady Bordyugov
was the most popular. This approach reflects the recent past as the realization of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks initial political doctrine. It deals with the different ways Marxist concepts were adapted to fit the Stalinist political system. Today these ideas represent a specific Russian modification of the «totalitarian» approach developed by American Sovietologists of the «Cold War» period.
There are many facts and events in the history of the 20th century that could explain the first algorithm, connected with the modernization pattern, and the «big revolution» algorithm. As for the first algorithm, since the end of the 1960s political scientists had been elaborating concepts explaining the developmental particularities of the second-tier capitalist countries, including Russia. The second algorithm was used by the Bolsheviks’ opponents, such as the Mensheviks, the National-Bolsheviks and the Trotskyists. This algorithm was also supported by those scientists who doubt the revolutionary character of the October Revolution of 1917 and refused to include it among the «great revolutions.» Whatever the attitude toward the Russian revolution, this approach did provide a scientific interpretation of the political extremism, violence and terror that occurred. It also allowed historians to trace the revolution’s ascent, regression and decline – that is, its «Thermidorian» and «Bonapartist» phases. The same can be said of the «algorithm of empire,» which can also be used to explain the birth, development, and collapse of the Russian and Soviet imperial systems.
The «grand algorithms» at best could form a clear historical picture of social development as a whole, but they could not deal with the analysis of concrete historical periods. They cannot explain many seemingly particular questions. This means that we need some «crossover» from global historiographical schemes to particular historical descriptions. It is necessary to find the turning points, notably the periods of fundamental change in the historical interaction of the «big algorithms,» when some algorithms come to the foreground and become determinative and others disappear or become dormant.
For the description of past crucial and routine turning points we can use Hegel’s concepts of «epic» and «prosaic» world conditions. According to Hegel, in its development, society not only goes through various phases, but through comparatively concentrated periods of high social tension and concentrated contradictions as well. They indicate the «crucial moments» of history. Some «crucial moments» develop into «epic» phases leading to great social progress. Others become moments when tactical choices are made concerning ways and means to advance society. The analysis of critical moments allows us to understand how the very nature of societal movement is changing or might change, how social contradictions interact, and what the relative strength among the «grand algorithms» appears to be.
During a period of crisis or social confrontation, we see the destruction of the habitual patterns of mass behavior. We see political extremism spilling out into the historical arena, giving rise to an atmosphere of intolerance and confrontation. Unfortunately, we know far too little about these problems which are so significant for the comprehension of the phenomenon «Russia in the 20th century.» It is important to understand why some crises lead to liberalization of the regime while others lead to its regeneration on even harsher foundations.
Political mechanisms of solving social crises as well as forms of social consolidation and stability differ greatly in conditions of «open» and «closed» political life. Historians have only just begun to study the real causes of the appearance in Russia of the one-party dictatorship, its social functions and concrete historical forms.
The events of 1991 and 1993 intensified discussions about the methodological crisis and new types of historiography. Some scientists even invited their colleagues to follow the «totalitarian» approach for the reason that it had prevailed in the West over so – called «revisionists.» Others were convinced of the advantages of the «civilization»-approach (with its ideological neutrality) over the «stages of development»-approach. While political scientists debating, postmodernism began to dominate the foreground. Postmodernism cast doubt on the necessity of history as science. Earlier, society had been looking for universal historical concepts. Historians freely used such concepts as «people,» «class,» «nation,» «state» etc. However, by the end of the the 20th century, in light of the crisis of modernism, industrial and urban ways of life, and the collapse of many political and intellectual absolutisms, everything has changed. The present is no more a logical result of the forward march of history.
Some scientists saw the way out of crisis in a paradigm shift – the substitution of modernism, with its universal explanatory theories of social development, with postmodernism. Post-structuralism allows us to outline patterns of multidimensional and irregular change. Michigan University Professor P. (full name) Novik said that the «postmodernism era» had dissolved historical time in a diversity of texts and opinions. However, some western researchers (P. Novik, K. Lloyd, J. Applebee, L. Hunt, M. Jacob etc) did not view postmodernism as a new tool of intellectual analysis. On the contrary, they considered it a «tool of control over minds» like Marxism and liberalism. Postmodernism became a mind controlling tool rather than a new tool of intellectual analysis. According to the teachings of postmodernism, historical thinking is destructive, it interferes with the present. Since nothing can be repeated in the world, there is no need to know history. We have to free ourselves from the «burden of history.» Thus the former attractiveness of postmodernism (how to find the meanings and contradictions in a text) turned to an extreme.
The representatives of the «new historical science» justify the search for a new approach through an innovative interpretation of historical objectivity. Every science is based on the interaction of a qualified researcher with an object of investigation. History that can understand and explain the world may still be written (REWRITE). Unlike poststructuralists, practical realists emphasize the ability of words to articulate different forms of interaction between the researcher and object of historical investigation. We can admit that language is a formality, that historians use rhetorical means and that the past has been constructed. However, we can draw a line between the past and the historical view on the past. It may be useful to ask anti-constructivists how to find the hidden meanings in the text. Points of view may be different. However, documents and sources must be carefully checked by different historians. This will facilitate a more positive approach which allows us to locate valid interpretations among the rival opinions on the past (with the existence of different variants of history).
This approach is valuable because of its ways and forms of dealing with the object of investigation. Each generation of historians deals with it in a different way, using notions that are valuable during a concrete period of history. Each generation rewrites history. Meanwhile the historian – a qualified researcher – is not obliged to be an impersonal truth seeker. She must take her own traits into consideration: her character, nationality, gender, and so on. This self-awareness is already a real revolution in historical thinking. Seeking scientific neutrality and objectivity must not turn into a form of religion.
A discussion of new paradigms was seriously complicated by the emergence from underground of «national histories.» In the early 1990s they began to replace State-centered histories of the USSR, which were common at that time. The concept of «national» histories (as opposed to «Soviet» histories) began to predominate in politics as well as in educational systems.
We will try to find an explanation for these phenomena through the examination of the historical circumstances, of the process of so-called nationalization of the popular historical consciousness, through consideration of historians’ inclination for nationalism and elites’ tendency to instrumentalize the past. However, we should emphasize the fact that the concept of «national history» in its sociological meaning is nothing else but a system of knowledge, created by the national school of historiography. It shows varying degrees of ethnocentrism.
For example, the history of France is considered to be the history of the whole population, not the history of the nation as an ethnos. This means that it focuses on the history of the territory and the state (the principle of the «political nation») and less on the history of the formation of the population (of the Gauls, the Teutons, etc.). When it comes to «national» German history it means the history of all the Germans. The Japanese history known as «kokusi» means both the «native history» and the «national history.»
In Russia, «national